Empty Ache
by Frigonfic
Summary: Her brain is quick but her heart is hollow. She survives long, but survival is nothing when there is nothing to return to. Maybe she was never hungry for food after all.


Hullo there!

This is just a one-shot that I've been working on. I'm trying something new; instead of creating a new character to write about, I've decided to write about characters that have already been created and make a back story for them.

It's a challenge for me, I guess, and it's still a work in progress, so forgive me if it really, really sucks.

Anyways, to the story!

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Everything belongs to Suzanne Collins. **

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_"And how much more beautiful than you am I, who am decorated, not in body, but in mind." _-The Fox and the Leopard, Aesop

She's not beautiful. No, she's not hideous either, but she's no beauty and no stunner.

But she doesn't mind. She doesn't mind at all, doesn't mind being the odd one out in her family. Her mother, her sister, her father - all beautiful people, with flowing apple-red hair and grassy green eyes. They were no doubt the fairest in her District, the ones that even the Capitol would swoon over. They were beautiful and gorgeous and elegant.

But she was different; her hair a little more orange, her eyes a little more brown, her chin a little sharper, nose too long, lips not as thick.

It used to bother her, how her family seemed like the ethereal fairies she read about while she looked like some sort of woodland creature. How could it have not, standing next to the people who loved you, yet were disappointed in you because you didn't quite live up to their expectations?

But what can you do, what can you do when what you're handed isn't what you wanted and it's unrefundable?

You deal with it.

Her family dealt with it, of course - she was their child after all - and she dealt with it too.

No, but it didn't stop her from seeing the exchanged glances that were passed at the dinner table. And it certainly didn't stop her family from looking at her occasionally with such disdain.

But it doesn't bother her anymore. She's learned how to deal with it, and she's past the point of yearning for something she can never get.

She turned to books, knowledge. She told herself that beauty is skin deep, and that brains will get her far one day.

But there is nowhere to go.

She soaked up knowledge like it was the air she breathed. She read the books that her family could not afford. She thirsted for information, facts.

It was her escape. But it was an escape that her family could not afford.

She didn't want to say anything bad about her family - after all, they shared a name and provided her with the necessities she needed - but there was no denying it: her family was poor.

It's not uncommon to be poor, or hungry. But her family shouldn't have been. There was three responsible adults - her sister was twenty - who were in perfect health to be working. Most families in their state were considerably well off, at least enough to survive.

But she was barely scraping by, skin and bones day after day for years.

So she signed up for the tesserae. And she became the only thing feeding her family. She signed up multiple times, simply because her sister refused to work and her parents were at the lowest rank and barely worked at all.

She had to feed her family.

And due to the lack of food, her family finally decided to utilize the one thing they had going for them - their looks.

Her older sister was trying to pursue the District's mayor's son, in hopes that they will one day wed and he will feed their family for many generations to come. But she does not think they can last long enough for her sister seduce and marry the boy; they are already low on food and the tesserae can't feed them all for long.

She couldn't understand, couldn't quite grasp why her parents and sister simply just _work more _to earn money.

In the end, she deduced that there was a type of people who were simply born lazy. Not incompetent; she knew her family was perfectly able to perform the jobs District 5 provided. Her family was the type of people who would 'go with the flow' and sit and wait for good fortune to turn their way.

But not her. She believed in working for a good result; in controlling what she gets. In working for survival.

But not her family. They are the ones who are supposed to be feeding her, and yet she goes hungry day after day.

Her name is drawn from the Reaping bowl for the 75th Hunger Games.

She suspects that the tears her family cries are mainly because her tesserae will no longer feed them.

And it hurts her to know that her family doesn't love her for _her, _but for what she provides.

And what she provides for them has led her straight to her death.

She's scared, shaking, trembling, _terrified. _Her death could only be a few weeks away.

She's seen the Hunger Games each year, seen how big those kids were, how merciless they were.

Already her analytical mind was thinking of thousands of way she could die. A thousand ways the arena could kill her, a thousand ways the tributes could kill her. But it all centered around one thing:

How much it was going to hurt.

She boards the train with shaky steps that are hesitant and scared, and her District Partner does the same. He's bigger than her, at least.

She eats dinner with her escort and mentor, both who provide no comfort or helpful advice. _She _could think of better advice than what their mentor was spewing out.

That night, she cries into her pillow silently. She's cried tears at night before, but never tears of fear and jittery nerves. She reviews her mentor's advice in her head, storing it into her memory.

It's all useless, she realizes quickly. What her mentor tells her is enough for her to survive a few days, but most likely not enough to win.

And she wants to win. She wants to go home, go to safety.

In her head, she can already formulate a million different strategies that could work.

A chance. Survival.

She's seen them work before. She's seen people like her win and go back home before.

And in the dead of the night, she sits up straight, the tears no longer flowing.

She has a strategy to win.

Throughout the remainder of the trip, she reviews her plan over and over again in her head, finding every slightest flaw and crossing it out, demolishing it with a change in the plan. She knows what to do.

She's not big. She's not bulky. She has next to no muscle. She's skin and bones and small.

And she knows how to play this to her advantage.

During training, she avoids the weaponry and combat and strays towards the edible plants and camouflage. She makes sure to steer clear of any tribute who might see and her find her as an easy target.

Thankfully, she's not the smallest - there's a little girl from District 11 who looks barely old enough to be Reaped.

Her heart twinges when she sees this little girl; someone who did not deserve to be here, someone who deserved to be at home with her family and siblings.

But the odds were not in the little girl's favor and the odds were not in her favor, either.

She avoids the swords and knives and spears because she knows she will only be making a fool out of herself by even trying to handle those weapons.

And she is no fool.

Her sharp eyes see everything - the girl from 1 missing the target with her arrows, the bulky boy from 11 trying out some spears, the two from 12.

Fire Girl. And the boy who looks at her with such eager, loving eyes. Fire Girl doesn't seem to notice how he looks at her, with such longing and love.

Her heart twinges when she sees the way the way he looks at her because no one has ever looked at her like that and no one ever will.

She watches all the tributes as they train. Who is capable of survival and who is not? Who is worth watching and who is to die on the first day?

She eyes the Careers carefully - swords, knives, spears - they're dangerous, and she'd be stupid to try and take them all on at once.

Fire Girl and her lover. They should be safe, she thinks. Fire Girl is skilled and her lover seems competent enough. They weren't as high in numbers and weren't quite as lethal or unforgiving.

The interviews only confirm her suspicions - the boy is madly in love with Fire Girl. It didn't take a genius to notice that, as long as they watched them long enough.

And she feels a twinge of something that her analytical brain can't decipher.

They days mesh with one another, passing by too fast in a haze of training and watching. They're in the arena almost too soon.

She scans the place methodically, eyes taking in every detail, brain analyzing every fact, every danger possible in this place. The voice rings out, loud and deep, counting down.

When the cannons ring to signal the start of the 74th Hunger Games, she runs as fast as she can in the opposite direction of the Cornucopia; away from the bloodbath, away from the danger. She doesn't bother even trying to take a bag of supplies; she's small but she doubts she can avoid the weapons soaring around.

No, she won't risk it.

She lies silently in the outskirts of the forest, silent and waiting.

The Careers thundered by, out for the hunt, thirsting for blood.

She follows swiftly behind, a few hundred meters behind, but not far enough for her to lose sight of them.

Twelve cannons ring, louder than she thought they would be. They seem to make the ground vibrate, making her footsteps unsteady and uncertain.

Smoke rises out of a small clearing of trees. She avoids the area and stays hidden behind the trees. She almost wants to roll her eyes and yell out how stupid that person was for even _thinking _about lighting a fire in the middle of the night.

But she's silent and stealthy and she watches the Careers with her sharp eyes.

One more cannon rings.

She's surprised to see Lover Boy - as the Careers call him - join the Careers. The boy from District 12 - he's strong, yes, but she doesn't think that's a big enough asset to allow him into the Careers. The only time they let other Districts into their alliance is if they have an extraordinary skill. She quickly realizes that they're only using Lover Boy to find Fire Girl - after she had the training score of 11, and they were star-crossed lovers - he was bound to know where she was hiding.

But there's something not right. Lover Boy loves Fire Girl - she can see it in his eyes, though she has never seen it before in her life. She's sure that if you loved someone, you wouldn't lead a pack of bloodthirsty murderers to them.

She's no expert on love, but she's pretty sure that's not the way love works.

So Lover Boy has something up his sleeve; she's sure of it, but she's not sure what it is exactly. She'll find out, though, in time.

For the next few days, she follows each tribute in the arena. She makes note of the plants in the area, going as far as she dares without being caught by some wandering tribute.

The bulky boy from 11 is in the fields, with wheat stems taller than her, almost as tall as that tribute boy from District 1. The first time she was cautiously exploring the field, she stumbled into the District 11 boy. She froze and didn't even dare to breathe while he scanned the area around him suspiciously. She was sure her flag of red hair would give her away for sure, and she swears his warm, dark brown eyes lingered to her for a second before darting away.

While his back was turned, she bolted silently out of the area. Several hours later, she returned, finding the boy looking the other way with his sickle in his hand, watching for any signs of movement. There's more food next to him than she remembers. The boy suddenly tenses and stands up, walking a few steps away from the food, eyes searching for something she could not see.

Seizing his moment of distraction, she steals the barest amount of seeds from his pile of food. He wouldn't notice anything.

She dashed away quietly before he could turn around again.

She's hungry and starving, but hunger is like an old friend of hers. She's all too familiar with the sensation, but her mind is getting foggier and her footsteps are getting slower. She needs food, but she's not stupid enough to risk taking more food and risk being noticed.

She knows a lot, but what she doesn't know is that Thresh sees her fiery red hair and intelligent hazel eyes and he looks at his pile of seeds, slightly less than how much he had a few minutes ago, and he smiles.

Fire Girl and the little girl from 11 were found in the heart of the forest, Fire Girl unconscious and 11 taking care of her and her burns.

She had saw the flames licking the sky, and she knew exactly what happened: the Gamemakers with their petty laughs of the Girl on Fire.

She could kill Fire Girl and the little girl from 11, she really could. She didn't have any weapons, but she had her own two hands and that was often quite enough to kill somebody.

It was easy. She could wrap her hand around the little girl when she wasn't looking and just _squeeze _until she stopped squirming. And then after the little girl was out, she could smother Fire Girl with her jacket. She was unconscious and it would just be _so easy _to take the both of them out.

But she's no murderer. She's watched them for any steal-worthy items, and she managed to take a few of their meager supplies and food. She may be a thief, but she's no murderer.

How could she kill the little girl from 11? That was her a few years ago, fearful and scared, though she thinks the little girl was braver than her.

She couldn't kill Fire Girl or the little girl. She couldn't kill anybody, even if the opportunity to was bright and open. She scampers away with her stolen goods, feeling that she had made the right choice, even though her goal was to win.

Lover Boy is down by the lake. She's not too sure exactly where he is, but she saw him stumble there, after what that boy from 2 did to him.

The Careers are down by the Cornucopia, no longer travelling too far after the tracker jacker incident. She wasn't there to witness it; she was thankfully by the fields, watching the boy from 11. But she saw the broken hive, the girl from 1's dead body, the stings on the Careers, and Katniss' state. She was pretty sure she knew exactly how that event went down.

Katniss with her new bow and arrows. Peeta, hurt badly - she saw the bloodstains on the rocks - and hiding out. The Careers, furious and thirsty for the blood of none other than Fire Girl.

And she watches the Careers for days and days, eying their new recruit - the boy from District 3. It doesn't take her long to figure out the Career's latest plans - she saw them dig up the bombs next to the plates that they stood on at the start of the Games.

She watches the boy from 3 carefully as he meticulously rearranges the bombs around their mountain of supplies.

She memorizes the pattern - hard, but not hard enough for one of the simple-minded Careers to accidentally step on.

But still hard enough to accidentally miss a step and get blown up.

She scours the area for food - berries, plants, animals - and only come back with a few sour-tasting berries. They settle like stones in her stomach; not enough to get by, at least, not for long.

She watches the Careers with utmost concentration, reviewing the locations of the bombs over and over again in her mind. She eyes the packs filled with food with greed and hunger, and she _wants _it - no, she _needs _it.

After a fitful night's sleep, day comes, bright and piercing, and she watches the Careers once again.

Smoke rises, far from their site, and once again she wants to yell at the person for setting the fire. In broad daylight, too! Were they purposely _trying _to get killed?

But it plays out to her advantage when the Careers leave their site - and their supplies. They leave the boy from 3 to guard, but he's equipped with a spear, and she's seen him during training. He can't handle a spear properly - she's seen him try, only to look like a fool.

So while he looks the other way, she dashes as fast as she can towards the supplies from the opposite side of where the boy stood. She stopped just as the planted bombs began, and carefully, quietly, she leaps over the bombs.

Her brain reviews the locations of the bombs a million times in that one second, over and over again until she's sure it's burned into her memory forever. Her hunger fuels her on and her steps are light.

But no - the lack of food for days kicks at her exactly at the wrong time, and her knees weaken for a split second, causing her to stumble and fall, face-first into the ground.

She squeaks softly as she nears the ground. Her hands support her, her long nose centimeters away from the ground. She takes a few hurried, nervous breaths before carefully rising onto her two feet again and continuing on her steps around the bombs.

She reaches the supplies quickly and grabs what she can - but only a little. A few apples, a bit of cheese, some other small things that the Careers would never notice.

She dashes away, light-footed and nimble with her loot before the boy from 3 can even realize what happened.

But he does catch on, and she doesn't dare stop, because he has a spear and she has nothing. She races to the wheat fields, where the boy from 11 resides. She's careful to step far away from his area, making sure she didn't bump into him.

With the tall wheat stems, the boy from 3 can't follow and gives up, deciding that the figure he saw was merely a figment of his imagination. Paranoia, that's what it was.

She hides in the fields and snacks ravenously what little goods she managed to snatch.

But before she can take a bite into her deliciously juicy apple, a distant explosion sounds. It's not a cannon, that she knows for sure. She figures she should let some time pass before arriving at the site of the explosion - like what she did with the fire - going hours after the rage to see if there was anything worth salvaging.

So while she waits for the heat to blow over, she eats her delicious food - not enough for her protesting stomach, but better than nothing.

Then, two cannons ring; one quick and the other following a minute or two later.

And she wonders whose cannons they were and if she will ever have a cannon herself.

She bolts away from the field and back towards the Careers and their site, to see if they were still there - perhaps they were still hunting and she could take more.

When she arrives, she's greeted by a marvelous sight.

Black, charred, burned.

Exploded.

The Career's pyramid of supplies were demolished - well not completely, but most of it was burnt to the ground.

She walks carefully to the base of the charred pyramid, and looks around.

No more food. No more supplies.

And she throws her head back and laughs and laughs delightfully, because the Careers have stepped down a notch - a large notch.

Every year, in the Games, the Careers have two major advantages. The first being that they have had several years of training and the second being they always have many sponsors, meaning they never went hungry.

With one of the advantages gone, the Careers now face a major disadvantage:

They have no food.

And yes, the rest of them barely had any food as well, but now the Careers were at least somewhat on the same playing field, and the Games almost seem fair.

She laughs at the thought of the Careers groaning and clutching their stomachs, begging for food. She would bet everything she has that the Careers have never felt hunger before. Have never felt hunger gnawing at the very pits of your existence until you felt like you were nothing but a shell of a human.

And so she laughs.

And when she's done laughing, she salvages what she can from the pile of charred remains. There's no food, of course, but she manages to find a knife and a pot to use.

She leaves the site quickly after her discoveries, but even as she leaves, she can't get the laughter out of her system.

The Careers are hungry now, without any food or any knowledge on how to find food. She has a knife now, a weapon.

They all had the same situation and the same goal: survival.

They were all even now, and she felt like she stood a better chance of winning.

They announce the rule change a few hours after she finds the burned remains of the Career's supplies.

It merely rolls off her back; the rule doesn't apply to her. Her District partner died on the very first day.

She knows - everyone knows - that the rule change was for the star-crossed lovers of District 12.

But that didn't mean that the pair from 2 couldn't snatch victory as well.

That night, two faces light up the sky - the little girl from 11, and the boy from 1. Her heart twinges when she sees the little girl's face; she knew that the little girl barely had a chance of winning, but she didn't deserve to be here. She didn't deserve to die.

She spends the next few days looking for food, but with no luck. The Games are long, and all the food she's eaten while she was in the arena barely adds up to one small meal.

When the announce the Feast, she knows what she needs desperately - food. Without it, she won't last long enough to win.

Quickly, she weighs out her advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantages are much greater than the advantages.

She couldn't fight. She couldn't risk being in the bloodbath that this Feast was purposely called for.

She had to be quick. Grab her own bag so no one will follow her. Grab it first and run away as far as possible.

The thing was the Fire Girl was fast. And she had her arrows. But no doubt, she has teamed up with Lover Boy and was needed medication for his injury. She had seen the bloodstains. He wouldn't live long without it.

Thresh was fast too; she saw him running at the Cornucopia. Plus, he was large and had his sickle.

The remaining Careers from 2 were fast, too, and the girl had her knives. She's seen her training with them. The girl from 2 never misses and her knives are quick and deadly.

The only way she was going to be able to get her pack and get it _fast _was if she ran a shorter distance. There was no way she could outrun the remaining competitors, let alone outrun their weapons. If she was at a close enough distance to the packs, then they wouldn't hurt her.

They would all be at the edge of the forest, hidden. If she took her pack and ran first, fast enough, they wouldn't try killing her and risk revealing their location to the other hidden tributes.

Yes, yes, she had it! The plan was already formulating in her brain. She had to be close to the packs, much closer than the other tributes. But she still had to be hidden, at least until everyone shows up and hides.

The only place that fit all the descriptions she needed was the Cornucopia.

Mind set, she started to head towards the Cornucopia, past the burned supplies. She smiles when she passes it.

She hides in the corner of the Cornucopia and waits for the Feast to begin.

The tributes show up earlier than she thought they would; the duo from 2 are hours early, and the boy from 11 comes in a good time before the Feast starts. She watches as the table is lowered gently to the ground, holding four packs, each with their District numbers written on it, bright and clear.

Fire Girl appears last, without Lover Boy. She notches an arrow, ready to run.

It was now or never. The boy from 11 looked ready to run; so did Fire Girl. The pair from 2 are bound to emerge when the rest of them do.

Forcing her feet to move, she leaves the shelter and hiding-spot of the Cornucopia and grabs the pack with the large number '5' written on it and sprints away as far as possible, away from the eyes of the other tributes that she could see so clearly.

The smoke grey of Fire Girl, frustrated and desperate.

The forest green of the girl from 2, murderous and merciless.

The ice blue of the boy from 2, icy and ruthless.

The chocolate brown of the boy from 11, warm but hard.

She runs away from them all, and she can feel their eyes on her. It's the first time she's been fully out in the open since the initial Cornucopia bloodbath.

She runs as far as her feet can take her, until she's breathing she hard she's not sure if she's breathing anymore.

She rips open her pack to find food, oh so glorious _food, _and she devours it.

She saves some for later but eats as much as she can now.

It's not enough, it's never enough, but it's better than nothing and it's more than all she's had in the past few weeks.

She hears the ring of a cannon and can't help but to think how she was one step closer to winning.

More days pass, and though she rationed the food from her pack carefully, she's all out.

The hunger comes back at full force, ten times worse than anything she's ever faced.

She's stumbling, tripping, her stomach growling so loudly that she's sure a tribute is going to come and axe her any second now.

But she manages to find Lover Boy and Fire Girl down by the stream, and she watches as they settle on a signal. They don't say it, but she can see the love in their eyes and something besides hunger shoots through her.

She watches as Fire Girl leaves Lover Boy to hunt; she's not surprised, he's loud enough to alert the dead. Lover Boy leaves some cheese on his jacket, and then he starts picking berries. He leaves some berries on his jacket, too.

Her mouth drools at the sight of the rich, creamy cheese.

But she shuts her mouth and surveys Lover Boy carefully, watching him pick more berries. He has a soft look to his face, though she can tell he's been through more than one his age should have. His eyes are focused on the berries, concentration in his eyes and a lightness in his fingers that she wouldn't expect from someone his size.

His fingers are gentle, almost caressing the berries off the bush.

Then he's distracted once more, and she seizes the chance to take some of the cheese and berries from his jacket - just the slightest bit; nothing that they'll miss.

As she flees the site and settles on a safe forest clearing, she thinks of Lover Boy. The way he looks at Fire Girl. They way he picks the berries with such gentle hands.

She nibbles on the cheese, savoring the taste.

She envies Fire Girl, how she has this soft, gentle boy in this rough, harsh world. She wonders if there's anyone like that for her when she gets back home.

And then a thought, a single thought, strikes her. She stops eating.

What was waiting for her back at home? A family, of course.

But a family who, at this second, only wants her to come back home to bring them food and riches. A family who doesn't care about her at all, only what she brings.

Is that worth going home to?

And then she's silently berating herself. These are the people that gave her life, that gave her a name, that gave her a home and gave her food.

But she was the one giving them the food to survive.

And they never gave her the one thing she wanted the most: love.

She didn't know it until she saw Fire Girl and Lover Boy.

Was it fair, being the provider but getting nothing in return?

She finishes the cheese.

Her thoughts are always swirling in her head, now more than ever. Her analytical brain will not stop working, not even as she sleeps with one eye open.

A brain so complex, so filled with knowledge that was so eager to learn more. A brain that was fading slowly due to the lack of nutrition. A brain that never stopped for a second.

But all the gears grind to a halt; a pause that's permanent. Her brain that never stopped until the berries are ingested, freezing her thoughts half-finished.

And her brain stops, as does her heart.

Her mouth is parted slightly, eyes half open; dying in the middle of one last thought.

* * *

Thank you so, so much for reading this far - I know it's a lot and less of a one-shot.

Well, here is an explanation for a few things that might be plaguing your mind:

I didn't want to give Foxface a name - I know that some think her name is Finch, while others think it's something else. I'm on the fence with it. I quite like her to remain nameless; it gives her character a little more mystery and intrigue.

I also didn't want to put '...and Foxface ran...' simply because Foxface is NOT her name, despite the fact that this is the only name we have for sure of her. The idea of putting 'Foxface' as a substitute for her name doesn't appeal to me because 'Foxface' is a name Katniss gives her derived from what _Katniss_ thinks of her. And I think that when writing this story about her, it shouldn't be about what Katniss thinks of her. It should be about _her. _I have nothing against Katniss; I just think that by putting 'Foxface', it takes away the essence of who she really is. At least, that's what I think anyways. So if you had a name for her, you could always substitute 'she' for the name of your choice. Everybody wins! (sort of)

Secondly, about Foxface's death, whether eating the nightlock was an accident or done purposely. I'm also on the fence with this (I'm on the fence for a lot of things), since there are good reasons for both sides of the argument. I wanted to write an ending that no matter what side you're on, it still fits. I hoped the ending was one that left you filling in the rest of the story the way you wanted it to end, I guess. Hopefully I succeeded?

One last note (sorry, I'm sure you guys are all tired of reading stuff by me, but I just wanted to add this in). About her family in the beginning, I wasn't too sure what I was aiming for when I wrote about them. Yes, they're lazy people, and yes, they live in Panem where hard work is essential. Yes, most of the people in Panem are hard workers because that's what they need to do to survive, but there are also people like Foxface's family who fails to provide what is essential because they simply _don't want to. _People like this are rare (I hope), but there are people out there like that. I don't know where I'm trying to go with this; maybe perhaps that sometimes the Capitol isn't what kept some people working harder than necessary? That sometimes the people right in their homes were what made their children starve? That all of the Capitol weren't the bad guys and all the other Districts were the good guys? I don't know. Maybe that there's good sprinkled on both sides, as well as bad; just that more of one is found on one side?

Oh god, I don't know where I'm going with this. Sorry you had to read that.

Anyways, if you have any comments, questions, feedback, or anything you'd like to share, please, please feel free to leave a review or message!

Thanks for reading again!


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